Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).

Friday, April 14, 2006

Friday News Round-Up

A lot happening today already, and it's only 9am:

Alan Schlesinger, former mayor of Derby, will officially enter the senate race on the GOP side, reports the Courant. He will join anti-immigration xenophobe Paul Streitz as officially declared Republican candidates. Unlike Streitz, he has the tacit support of the state party and plans on putting his money where his mouth is:

A tax attorney who graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, Schlesinger is pledging to spend $500,000 of his own money to jump-start his campaign, which would be up against Lieberman's war chest of more than $4 million.

"Our budget is $3 million," Schlesinger said. "I'm going to be matching the first $500,000 dollar for dollar."

The first-quarter campaign finance report from the Lamont camp is due out today. In CT-04, Diane Farrell outraised Chris Shays $514,595 to $372,000 in the first quarter, a great showing. Laura Bush is coming to Connecticut to raise money for Shays's faltering campaign later this month.

The Town Times reports on Ned Lamont's visit to Middlefield on Tuesday:

Lamont seemed to already have support among those who had come to see him speak. "Joe Lieberman has changed," Clay Howe of Durham commented, "He is no longer the Joe Lieberman who once represented New Haven.

The conservative NY Sun weighs in on Lieberman's threat to cut and run from the Democratic party in an op-ed entitled "Cannibalizing Lieberman." Setting aside the fact that, once again, Lieberman's only defenders come from the right side of the political spectrum, it's clear that the Democratic party is not "cannibalizing" anyone by having a discussion on important issues in a primary with the minor demand that an 18-year incumbent abide by the results of that primary. When's the next time Joe goes on Hannity's show?

Rumsfeld's replacement should be someone who can help restore a bipartisan consensus for a sensible Iraq policy. One obvious candidate would be the centrist Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman.

If this happens, this will be exactly how the establishment media will play it. And it is complete bullshit. Joe Lieberman cannot "help restore a bipartisan consensus" on Iraq any more than Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld could, because he's a pure neoconservative ideologue on defense who has never been interested in doing so. He has toed the Bush-Cheney line and refused to ask tough questions every step of the way. For the sake of the country, we really need a non-ideologue like Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, no matter what party affiliation. Joe Lieberman would just be more of the same failure, with a "Democratic" face.

Former Derby Mayor Alan Schlesinger will enter the U.S. Senate race Monday, seeking the Republican nomination and setting the stage for a potential battle against incumbent U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in November.

Schlesinger, who won six elections for the state legislature and two for mayor, predicted Thursday that Democratic challenger Ned Lamont would defeat Lieberman in a Democratic primary in August, setting up a possible three-way race in November. The reason for the prediction, Schlesinger said, is "history" - meaning that Democrats in Connecticut have traditionally chosen the more liberal candidate in primaries.

"This is the party that brought you [former gubernatorial contender Bill] Curry twice and is totally upset with Lieberman over Iraq," Schlesinger said. "Lamont will be coming at him from the left, and I will come at him from the right."

What can I say but YIPPIE!!

Schlesinger appears to be a serious GOP candidate & contender who can tap deeply into the pool of pro-bush CT repubs that Lieberman has been playing to and that Lieberman had counted on to win in November.

I'd say that Lieberman has just lost about 50% of the voter base that he had counted on to win in November.

LIEBERMAN'S NOVEMBER VICTORY STRATEGY IS NOW TOTAL DOGMEAT!

YIPPIE!!

This is Joe Lieberman's worst nightmare come true, with him now facing viable contenders on both the left and the right, squeezing Lieberman's moderate wishy-washy repub-lite turf where Lieberman likes to maneuver into a very narrow sliver of a space.

And I have a confession to make; while a Lamont victory in Nov is my first choice, I would be almost as happy with a Schlesinger victory as well, that is how much I hate Lieberman.

My first priority is to get Lieberman out of CT politics; I want to see Lieberman severely politically punished & humiliated in a way that resonates with him for the rest of his life.